Two political groups in Milton have scheduled candidates’ forums on Thursday at the same time as the election campaign for the Aug. 26 balloting heats up.

The city of Milton’s scheduled municipal elections on Aug. 26 are getting fractious, not so much among the candidates but between two rival political forums.

The groups are vying with each other for public attention and participation by the record number of candidates for Milton city government — seven. More immediately, Milton community leaders say there have never been two competing public forums scheduled on the same date and time: today at 6 p.m.

“There’s two factions, liberals and conservatives,” said Patsy Lunsford, the council member for Ward 2, Seat 1.

Moreover, the two events are scheduled to be held within about a block of each other downtown. The League of Women’s Voters gathering is at the Imogene Theater, while the Soap Box Rally, is planned by the owners of Camelot Junction, an antique store at 5243 Willing St., which is hosting the function.

Although the elections are officially non-partisan, Lunsford said that as a self-described conservative, she’s probably attending the Soap Box Rally, but not the Women’s Voters’ forum. Acknowledging that she could split her time between the two meetings, Lunsford said she doesn’t plan on that.

Neither will Milton Mayor Guy Thompson, who has been in office for 20 years. He will favor the Soap Box Rally. He said that’s partly because the Women’s League event was organized by “one of my biggest critics,” Kim Macarthy, owner of the Copper Possum, which is also an antique retailer.

Macarthy said the Women’s League began organizing its event on June 20, nearly a month before the Camelot Junction group. She asserted that Rhonda Chavers, a retired teacher who will moderate the Soap Box Rally, purposefully scheduled that forum to conflict with the Women’s League.

But in a phone interview Wednesday, Chavers said, “Honestly, I did not know about their event.” Chavers said her group began organizing for Thursday in “early July.”

Milton’s roughly 6,700 voters will be able to cast ballots in the non-partisan election for the office of mayor and six city council seats.

The record number of six city council seats up for grabs is due to several circumstances: the death of one city councilman, the resignation of another to run for mayor and the decision of two councilman not to run for re-election, plus the normal ending four-year terms of two other councilmen and women.

Neither forum’s organizers flinched when finding out about the other event. “Why would we change?” said the Women’s League’s Macarthy. “We already had ours organized.“

Chavers said it’s too late for the Soap Box Rally to reschedule, having sent out more than 1,500 invitations on Facebook.